By now, many of us in the music business, as well as Jay-Z fans, know that Samsung has purchased one million âMagna Carta Holy Grailâ digital albums to be given away to the phone makerâs customers. It is a novel and creative marketing move and it has rightly stimulated a healthy conversation about the saleâs meaning and implications for the modern music business. For us, the move prompted a re-examination of our historic Gold & Platinum (G&P) Program award rules. As we dug through the records of audits, re-reviewed rules and consulted with our auditing firm of more than thirty years, Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman, we discovered one rule disparity that no longer makes sense.

One of our programâs requirements is that an album can become eligible for certification 30 days after release date. (There are other rules, of course â such as requiring that the price of the album meet certain requirements.) The 30-day rule exists to take into account potential returns of physical product â CDs, cassettes, vinyl, etc. that could be shipped to brick and mortar retailers and returned, in which case our auditors do not count the sales. When we first created the Digital Single Award in 2004, we elected not to impose any 30-day rule because there are very few digital returns. According to our auditing firm, digital returns on average account for less than two percent of sales included in reports provided by the labels for certification â most digital retailer Terms of Use/Service allow users to return products only under limited circumstances. Also at the time in 2004, sales of digital albums were virtually non-existent and accounted for a small fraction of overall digital sales. Fast forward a decade and thatâs obviously no longer the case.

We think itâs time for the RIAA â and Gelfand, Rennert & Feldman â to align our digital song and album certification requirements. Thatâs why today we are officially updating this rule in our G&P Program requirements. Going forward, sales of albums in digital format will become eligible on the release date, while sales of albums in physical format will still become eligible for certification 30 days after the release date.

Not only do we believe itâs sensible and logical to align digital album rules with those we have maintained for digital singles since the programâs inception, we also consider todayâs move in line with our larger efforts to modernize the G&P Program to reflect the new music marketplace. In May we announced the integration of on-demand streams to the program to more broadly recognize online demand for songs.

The reality is that how fans consume music is changing, the music business is changing as labels and artists partner with a breathtaking array of new technology services, and the industryâs premier award recognizing artistsâ commercial achievement should similarly keep pace. In short, weâre continuing to move the 55-year-old program forward and itâs a good day when music sales diversification and innovative strategies meet the RIAAâs time-tested, gold standard requisites for certification.

Here's another interesting (hilarious layer to add to the tale of Kanye West's Yeezus vs. Jay-Z's forthcoming Magna Carta Holy Grail: Rick Rubin, who appears in the Samsung ad/promotional videos for Jay's new record, did not actually have any hand in producing it. He was merely used as an advertiorial prop, which can be interpreted any number of ways given the news of Rubin's very heavy involvement in the recent completion of Kanye's Yeezus."The point of me being in the commercials was that he [Jay-Z] was filming a documentary and he asked me-- I imagine he is comfortable talking to me-- to come listen to the songs with him and just talk about the songs," Rubin told XXL. "Just listen to it and talk about it, and that's what we did. It was fun." Note that Rubin is, fittingly, pictured reclining on a couch in the footage.But here's the real kicker, the knife in Jay's Samsung-powered heart: "I liked what I heard, but it was a little difficult-- after just coming from the Kanye sessions-- to listen to Jay's album, because they're so different," Rubin said. "I was in a very alternative and progressive headspace, and Jay's record is a more traditional hip-hop record."Magna Carta Holy Grail is out on July 4 digitally. Revisit the promo video in which Jay-Z discusses his song about Blue Ivy with Rubin, which now reads like a parody:

- parts of MCHG sound like an improved Yeezus. like, kanye introduced us to the new style, then jay showed us how its done right. - i bet there's a version of "holy grail" with rihanna instead of justin timberlake. - "heaven" sounds like some dangermouse grey album shit. JT doing john lennon works- eminem needs to get on the "somewhereinamerica" remix and talk about the state of the country for a bit. - "fuckwithmeyouknowigotit"makes me think of that scene in gladiator when caesar is coming back into rome and they're throwing that giant celebration/parade. rick ross is some fat european king in the middle ages. fucking awesome.- the line "i dont pop molly, i rock tom ford" says so fucking much. i think he just pissed on like every young rapper right now. its like he's going "psssh.. these kids..." - the last minute of "jay-z blue" is jaw dropping

i give the album a 9/10 so far. it's really good. i really really dig the overall soundscape of the album. content wise, there isn't much new stuff as opposed to yeezus. its still rich people rapping about being rich. the difference i guess is that with yeezus,kanye seems like he's making a statement. with jay, it just feels like he's listing facts. its all in the attitude in which they rap. like, kanye is saying "hey everyone look how awesome i am!!!" while jay is more "oh yeah. i do these awesome things. i guess that's makes me awesome." MCHG is just like a glimpse into the life of a king (or better yet "a god)". he goes around the world, hangs in the exclusive circles, shits on all the little kids who think they're tough/cool, buys/does things we can only imagine, but at the end of the day all he really cares/worries about are his queen, his princess, and his kingdom.